1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a tire type determination method in which the type of a tire mounted on a vehicle is determined, and also relates to a vehicle inspection method and a vehicle inspection system in which it is determined whether the type of the tire mounted on the vehicle conforms to the specified tire type of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a related art, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 9-277806 (JP-A-9-277806) describes a tire type determination method in which the type of the tire mounted on the vehicle is determined. In the tire type determination method of the related art, the tire is placed in contact with a circumferential surface of a drum and rotated in a circumferential direction so as to capture a color image of a surface of a tread portion of the rotating tire. Then, image information related to color tread identification lines is extracted from the captured color image, and checked against registered information related to the color tread identification lines so as to determine the type of the tire.
However, in the related art as described above, the tire type determination method requires the same number of cameras as the number of the tires mounted on the vehicle. For example, four units of cameras are required in the case of a four-wheel vehicle. Further, in the tire type determination method of the related art, it is not possible to perform an in-line inspection (inspection in the carrying process), and moreover, in order to handle various types of vehicles (with various different treads and wheel base lengths), movable portions that move the respective cameras are required so as to capture the images of the tires of the different types of vehicles.